Backgrounds are crucial to my drawings and prints. I have never really thought about it much,
or planned things that way. Even in my early drawings from pre-school days I involved background
subject matter. If I was drawing a cowboy on a horse, I might include a tiny wagon train way in the
distance or a crowd of onlookers while knights in armor competed at jousting. The drawing above is one I did when I was 4 years old.
I love the completeness and depth of a composition that takes you back into the world as well as
focusing on the foreground subject.
The great Albrecht Durer was a master of this concept, with a sense of perspective in his incredible
prints that is amazing for an age without cameras.
Turning a flat piece of paper into something 3-dimensional is the magic of my art. Note the city of
Berkeley in the background of the Egret print, Bran Castle in the Peacock print, and the distant hills in
“26 th floor”.